


Arrangements

by bookishandbossy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Falling In Love, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5715637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishandbossy/pseuds/bookishandbossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons falls in love with Leo Fitz precisely because no one expects her to. (A Fitzsimmons 19th century arranged marriage AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the timestamp fic giveaway I did many eons ago and as an expansion of the "romance after marriage" drabble I did once.

Jemma Simmons falls in love with Leo Fitz precisely because no one expects her to. Theirs is a marriage of convenience in every way possible, like hundreds of other marriages discreetly being made between the gently impoverished English aristocracy and the new industrial millionaires, whose money stinks of steel and dust but is money all the same. On paper, they are a perfect, impersonal balancing act. She is everything he is not and he has everything she does not.

She is beautiful and related to half the notable families in England, trained since birth in all the million tiny social graces that make her more than capable of navigating the murky waters that are known as high society. He rarely thinks before he speaks and although he's charming at his best, he saves it for the people who don't matter and has a particular talent for offending the people who do. For her dowry, she has a crumbling, near-Gothic hunting lodge in the north of England and a pile of debts almost as ancient as her family's house. He has more money than he knows what to do with. Marriages have been made for less.

Jemma knows what's happening the moment her father calls her downstairs and she arrives to see Fitz standing in her drawing room, shifting nervously from foot to foot in front of a shabby velvet sofa. She realizes that it's a carefully timed entrance the moment that she makes it, skirts rustling around her feet and morning sunlight streaming in through the French windows to frame her face. He looks suitably dazed. “Mr. Fitz,” her father says. “This is my eldest daughter, Jemma. Jemma, this is Mr. Leopold Fitz.”

“I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance,” Jemma says and dips an elegant curtsy. “I'm a great admirer of your work.”

“Isn't everyone?” he mutters. He looks like he isn't inclined to believe her. Or much of anything, really. His arms are folded across his chest, ruining the line of his suit, and everything about him looks out of place. The lines of his suit are too crisp and his blue eyes are much too bright. He's shiny and new where her entire house is old and worn and seeing him stand there, the bright flash of his handkerchief shouting his colors from one pocket, Jemma is suddenly conscious of just how far her family has fallen. Just how badly they need this marriage. So she lifts her head high, noticing the way that his gaze slides down the line of her neck before he looks away and down at the fraying carpet, and smiles at him with all the warmth she can muster. He looks like he has kind eyes, she tells herself, and that will have to do.

“I read your paper the other week, on your experiments developing a stronger kind of steel with Mr. Stark,” Jemma says and crosses to him. “You're calling it vibranium, yes?”

“Yes. Yes, we are.” He looks at her again and this time, his eyes snag on her and stay there. He drinks her in, eyes on her face, her hair, her dress, everywhere they can reach without being improper. Something in the set of his shoulders softens and he lets his hands drop to his sides, one of them still curled in on itself faintly like he wants to be holding on to something

“Would you like to see the house?” she asks, glancing up at him through her lashes. He stares right back, flushing slightly pink, but he can't seem to look away from her. Somewhere behind them, she can practically hear her father being pleased. A certain contingent among this season's crop of debutantes has been trying to catch Leo Fitz since the moment he first appeared in the social register. There are handsomer men, and more charming men, and men who know all the things he doesn't, but there is no one richer than him. And for those oldest daughters who need money more than they need anything else, he is perfect. “We have quite the impressive library.”

His face lights up like a small boy's presented with an extra biscuit when she swings the double doors open wide and he gazes up at the shelves upon shelves of books that make up their library. (The books are the one thing her mother will never let her father sell.) There's two levels to it, with a rickety winding staircase that leads from the first story to the second, and as Fitz bolts off to explore, Jemma thinks that there are two things to hold on to: he has kind eyes and he is fond of books. Surely anyone who is fond of books can also be fond of a girl who reads them.

Their courtship is as swift as society will permit and she arranges little of it. Fitz arrives at the house during their at home hours, hat in one hand and something for her in the other. He brings her flowers and chocolates and books and more often than not, he brings something for her sisters as well. He learns the vocabulary of ladies' dresses so he can talk with Marianne, patiently makes his way through _Jane Eyre_ and then promptly discusses it with Elizabeth, and memorizes odd facts about frogs to please Catherine. Against all the odds, he even manages to charm her mother, who's regarded the marriage with a skeptical eye since the moment her father first announced it, hoping for money that comes along with a convenient title instead. Fitz accompanies her riding in St. James' Park, even though he cannot handle his horse, and dances with her at balls where he tries his best to follow the dance patterns, and does everything that he should. From the outside, anyone would believe that he loves her and Jemma is thankful for that. Girls that are prettier and better bred than her go through with arranged marriages every day but Jemma is just proud enough to hope that people think he cares for more than her pedigree.

“You're very convincing,” she says to him at a garden tea, after he's brought her a plate of pastries and found her the best spot in the shade. “Well done.”

“Convincing?” he asks, blinking at her owlishly.

“All of this,” she sweeps an arm around them and the ring on her finger sparkles. “It's very...I appreciate it. What you're doing.”

“Ah. That. I...” He pauses and brings one hand up to tug through his curls, a nervous habit that she's seen him do often enough that she supposes it couldn't be trained out of him. “I want to be a good fiancé to you, Miss Simmons. And someday a good husband too. I haven't got very many role models but I've been doing research.”

“Research?” Jemma asks, curious. Fitz keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the ground and changes the subject. Later, after a careful cross-examination of her sisters, she finds out that he's been asking them questions about her. What she likes and doesn't, how she takes her tea, what her favorite books are, how she spends her days on those rare occasions when she has the chance to determine the course of them herself. He's also been spotted in intent conversation with Minister Coulson, the endlessly patient man who's rumored to be the Crown's spymaster, and with the dapper Lord Triplett, who recently married the minister's foster daughter, Lady Daisy Johnson. When Jemma (very sensibly) points out that Fitz could be conferring with them on any manner of things, her dear friend Miss Morse simply gives her an indulgent smile and says that she's heard Fitz is asking for advice on the subject of marriage to her. She isn't sure whether to be flattered that he thinks she's worth the research or alarmed that he considers himself to be so sorely in need of advice, but eventually, tentatively, cautiously she decides to be flattered. 

It's a heady sensation, having someone court her. Although pretty, Jemma is no stunning beauty and her meager dowry renders her family's title far less attractive and so she has spent most of her Season hovering on the sidelines, sipping weak lemonade and trading choice bits of gossip with Bobbi. The few men who did approach her did it halfheartedly and under the threatening eye of their mothers, recycling the same tired compliments and guiding her through each dance like a duty instead of a delight. (Perhaps she did step on their feet too often for it to even have a chance of being a delight.) Fitz's...enthusiasm is entirely different. She suspects that her mother has impressed the importance of doing everything _properly_ on him, probably with a series of luncheons-cum-interrogation sessions, and that he's been cowed into being at her side at every social event her mother can fit into her calendar before the wedding. Much to his credit, he appears as if he enjoys each and every tea and charity ball and sometimes, when he whispers a clever remark to her or Jemma glances over to see him smiling, she thinks that he might even be truly enjoying himself.

Their wedding is the event of the season, much to everyone's surprise. Fitz spares no expense, from the lavish spread at the wedding breakfast to the Paris-made white gown she wears down the aisle to the small orchestra playing in the church to the ring he slips on her finger. “It's made of vibranium,” he tells her afterward, during a lull in the wedding breakfast. “One of our first successful samples. I remembered that you'd been curious about it and so I thought you might like a ring made of it."

“One of the first samples,” Jemma breathes, twisting the ring around and around. It's rather beautiful, the way it catches the light. “But shouldn't you have used it for something more grand...like a shield? Something you can put on display.”

“Stark doesn't mind,” Fitz shrugs. “And I...I think the ring is grand enough for the both of us. You do like it, Miss Simmons?”

“I do. Very much. I'm not Miss Simmons anymore, though,” she reminds him with a small smile. “You could call me Jemma now. If you'd like.” 

“Jemma.” That's all he says but he says her name like it's a gift and when she rests her gloved hand on top of his for a moment, he lets her. They don't talk much to each other for the rest of the festivities, too busy accepting congratulations and making tired conversation with a never-ending line of titled lords and captains of industry, but she's comfortably aware of him there beside her, warm and steady at her shoulder. She's grown accustomed to Fitz over the months of their courtship, she supposes. It's easy being with him, even when they're not talking. She doesn't have to keep her hands clasped in her lap and her expression sweet and simpering, she doesn't have to watch every last one of her words, and she's never had to withstand so much as a tentative first sally against her virtue. In fact, it's not until the night of their wedding, when she catches a glimpse of the massive oak bed through the door that connects her room to Fitz's, that she even remembers about the consummation. (Consummation, honestly...she sounds like a medieval maiden locked up in a tower.)

It's cold in his bedroom and her nightgown is thin silk so she buries herself underneath a pile of thick tartan blankets. She's propped herself up with an array of pillows and primly folded her hands on her lap, so she probably looks more like an invalid than a bride on her wedding night, but Fitz stops in the doorway when he sees her all the same. If she didn't know better, she'd suspect that he's struggling to catch his breath. “We don't have to do anything tonight,” he says quietly. “Whatever you wish.”

“We'll have to eventually. For—for children,” she mumbles and feels a blush spread across her cheeks. 

“We can wait for children until you decide that you want one. Jemma, I..” He comes to perch at the end of the bed, still keeping a respectable distance between them. “I don't want you to close your eyes and think of England. It...this should not be a duty.”

Gratitude swells in her throat until she can't say anything else, but she smiles at him and motions him closer. It's not that she doesn't want to, not exactly. Sometimes his waistcoat stretches a little too tight across his shoulders or there's a different light in his eyes and she feels something hot and wanting stir in the pit of her stomach. Sometimes she remembers the dry scientific diagrams she's found in books and wonders how different they would be with another person. But sometimes she's afraid and sometimes she's unsure and sometimes she wonders how well she even knows the man she's been pledged to for the rest of her life and she may not know much about what goes on in marriage beds, but she wants to wholly, unreservedly want it. So instead she asks Fitz to stay, just to sleep, and she rests her head on his shoulder and sleeps better than she has in months.

In the days and weeks after their marriage, Jemma expects that he will disappear, off to his laboratories and his factories and the entire wide world that men are allowed to inhabit. It's a large house, after all, larger than he knows what to do with and it would be easy for them to lose each other in the winding passageways and cavernous rooms of it. But instead she keeps on encountering him. In the library, where they discuss the most recent books they've been reading until both their voices have gone hoarse and the dinner bell rings, where he sends a cunning device up one of the shelves to get a book she can't reach, where she finds herself glowing with pleasure at the conversation even when they argue. In the gardens, where he strolls alongside her and offers to name the new rose the gardener's been cultivating after her. (When she objects to having someone else's work named after her, the head gardener shoots Fitz a not so subtle wink and says he doesn't mind at all.) In the portrait gallery, where they invent elaborate stories about the pictures of various stuffy ancestors hanging on the walls. In the drawing room, where they take tea together each afternoon until it becomes a habit. More than a habit, Jemma admits to herself eventually, it's become her favorite part of the day.

“You know,” she says regretfully one day at tea, biting into a biscuit. “We'll have to give a ball soon. People expect it of us.”

“Do they really? I don't suppose we could be eccentric recluses?” Fitz asks hopefully. 

“Not quite yet.” Jemma dimples at him. She wouldn't mind being an eccentric recluse with Fitz, she thinks. She suspects that somehow, he's well on his way to being her favorite person. “Besides, my sisters will like it.”

“Ah, well. I'll do anything to please your sisters—I owe them a great debt, after all. They told me what kind of flowers you liked,” he says in response to her silent question. “It was a very kind thing to tell someone as nervous as I was.”

“You were nervous about meeting me?”

“Of course I was. Right then,” Fitz says, a faint blush stealing across his face. “Do you think if we have the ballroom floor washed, it'll be slippery enough to slide around in stocking feet beforehand?” He moves on to asking her about all the different details of the ball then, earnestly protesting that he doesn't know the first thing about fashionable refreshments, but the blush still lingers in her mind afterward. Her husband is not always as comfortable with her as he should be and sometimes when they talk, she spots his hands working awkwardly in his lap or the color rising high in his face. Yet whenever she sees him talk to his business partners or to his friends Lord Triplett and Mr. Hunter, he's all ease. This is the first time that she thinks she might know the reason why.

It's at the ball when she realizes that her husband is in love with her. She's had a gown made especially for the occasion, a shimmering blue that reminds her of the Channel on a sunny day, and it sways and curves around her feet when she descends the stairs to stand beside him in the spot where they'll welcome guests. Fitz's eyes go wide and his smiles gets even wider and for a moment, his face is completely open, the worries that sometimes lurk around the corners of his eyes forgotten. It's like someone has turned a light on inside him and all of a sudden, Jemma realizes that that someone is her. Fitz loves her, simply and totally, and it sends a surge of joy jolting through her.

She doesn't say anything about it during the ball. Instead, she adjusts his cravat when it inevitably slips out of place. Instead, she links her hand through his as they stand there and leans up to whisper helpful hints in his ear when yet another member of the peerage approaches and she sees a look of dread cross his face. Instead, she dances with him even when they collide with one of the other couples. Instead, she makes sure to thieve a few berry tarts from the refreshments table and slip one to Fitz. And, much to the surprise of everyone who came in the hopes of witnessing a social catastrophe, their ball is an unqualified success. The orchestra plays beautifully, the chandeliers glitter just as brightly as the women's jewels, the couples whirl around on the floor with more than the usual amount of grace, and only one amorous pair is caught on the balcony.

“Thank you,” Fitz says after all the guests have gone, after they're curled up on a sofa in the library eating all the remaining refreshments. “I never would have managed something like that without you. I was bloody terrified, actually, at the thought of hosting the entire contents of Burke's Peerage. But things, they never...they never seem quite as daunting with you around. They seem much better, actually.”

“They seem better with you too,” Jemma says quietly and smiles at him. There's a hundred more things she wants to say but they're all crowding for space in her throat and she's not sure that the why and how and when are that important, anyway. Her husband, her funny and brilliant and kind husband, loves her against all the odds and she thinks that she might come to love him too. And, judging by the fluttering in her stomach and the warmth that slides through her whenever he smiles, she might already love him, just a little and all of a sudden, she can't wait to see his face when she tells him. So instead she leans forward and kisses him and hopes that it will be enough.

It's a brief kiss as far as kisses go, more sweet than anything else. But when she pulls back, Fitz looks dazed anyway. “You, you really...you, ah, you do?” he breathes.

“I do,” she says and kisses him again.


End file.
